Circumnavigation
by SeungSeiRan
Summary: Sometimes, he yearns for gravity. Rory-centric.


Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who_ or any of its respective characters.

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><p>The bunks become something of a joke in due time.<p>

They alternate little, her hair spilling over his chest like an open gash and Rory spends the rest of the night in third-person. He gazes up at her empty bed and imagines he is a speck of an eye on the wall, watching her breathe in time to the whir of gears on-board. Because if Rory dares believe it, he's holding his breath, waiting.

Waiting.

Any sign will do. It's all he seems to be waiting for these days, things he should've seen, alarm-bells that could've made him jump to attention. He wonders if he keeps tugging, yanking at the clues, they'll lead him to the end.

There is a thought that catches on a snag in his head, a minor mad ache if you will. In that thought is a sphere he peers into from one side only, where he sees a red-tiled house, a cat and a dog, a warm rug, a play-pen, a bright kitchen, all four of their coats on a shiny oak hanger by the door, _he sees a home_. And then that sphere tilts just so, until he can hear the voices, the laughter, the shrieks, the whispers holding secrets steady as cocking a gun into place.

Usually, it ends up falling over his pedestal. He watches it roll away, each side and its dreams shrinking into the great blue dark.

Like the sea.

A Pond.

_River._

It should've made sense then.

When Rory closes his eyes and goes away to that place not even his beloved may follow, it's always the same slide of bright and black, the same dulcet tone reminding him to wake up. From what, he wonders, from which? This or the nightmare of the past few days? The warmth of his bed-space or the hollow place that dreams cave in in his wife's heart?

It shouldn't make sense. Mother, Father and Baby could've made three.

This is where the thought drifts to memory and things start to grow. Rory knows why and succumbs.

Happiness is a word that rhymes with the crescent-curve that lights her eyes when she smiles. He knows he hasn't seen that in a while, not since... but he lets that pass. It's a mad little ache that ought to have no place in him if he wants to feel as grounded as could be light years away from earth soil. The paradigm strikes him in a place on which nothing has a hold on, where nothing, nobody grows roots. They only reach out and upward, their stalks alighting on an endless sky.

_All sky._

He thinks that River would like Earth well enough. He can sense it in the sun that lights her gaze, warms her voice (even if he'll never hear it babble or stutter upon its first word). Maybe they can still try for three, take the woman back with them for a day out in a park where the plants don't bite and children don't disappear. Rory still tastes salty, teary bitterness as he takes in the image flowering but he swallows the fruit anyway, saving it for when the night is darkest and Amy really needs a pick-me-up.

Despite the scratch-marks, the bruises turning purple and yellow right before his eyes on his skin and theirs, he'd want the Doctor around too. He'd like that. Very much. Rory knows that he'd know.

Maybe, in that house, they can plant some new promises, ones that are replaceable and will blossom year after year after any endless year they picked. Rory knows he's going round in circles (again) but perhaps it's worth the completion. They are all together and they can have the girls (both of them) tucked away with them, safe from time and space.

It's at this point that Rory wonders what'd happen if he stopped dreaming and started realizing. He'd had his daughter in his arms and then not at all. He has her mother for now but for how long 'til she drifts and they are back to the beginning?

Sometimes, the longing has his throat in knots and his eyes water until he's blind. They stream down across his temples, onto his pillow where they'll dry on their own. Alone. They will evaporate into nothing in the air but another ache that will thin out with time... _time_, it's always the wrong _time_...

Sometimes, Rory yearns for gravity.

He wants it like fresh earth after the rain. He wants like a cold, rainy day spent cuddled together under a beat-up old blanket, scaring shadow-puppet monsters away. He wants it bad, he wants it so hard it hurts and he could crack with the strain of it wakes up to Amy shifting in her sleep. He rubs her back until she's quiet again, because it's the least he can do.

He is her anchor and she his buoy.

Rory remembers that, repeats it, bears the levity of his choices.

The ache is quieter now, burying itself into self-wrought hibernation. He thinks of soil, gardens, is it winter down below? He pictures the ground hardening over the hidden pain, stifling it. Come spring, maybe they'll have something better to sing about. He hopes for it like he hopes for a sunset after a proper hard day at life.

Rory hopes.

And waits.

… closes his eyes.

Amy brushes a kiss on his forehead. He allows himself to be lulled...


End file.
